Master Zero, Beast One
by eluminaria
Summary: With the fear of death constantly on his mind, Nick Votterham finds a way to escape reality: through the books he finds on his friend's shelf. But when he accidentally takes his escape too far, his fear of death becomes even more real: a wight has decided that Nick's power is far more desirable than those of the Peculiars. And it's that same power that has put them all in danger...
1. Chapter 1

Nick held his breath, watching the others, trying to read their faces. Enoch's was a potent swirl of murderous intent and barely masked terror. His fingers twitched, unable to keep still. He had been in the middle of putting on a particularly violent battle with his figurines. By now they had probably slain each other and were lying motionless on the flat rock that had been their battleground. He couldn't go back for them now.

Fiona wouldn't look at anyone. Her knuckles were white where she clenched her apron. She had been chewing her lip, but now she just bit it hard, eyes downcast, her braids disheveled on either side.

And Olive...Olive said nothing, but her eyes burned.

Sand fell past the opening of their hiding place. The hollow was still there. They could hear him breathing. They could almost hear him lick his lips. The four of them were alone with him, grateful for the splash of the waves as sound cover but still terrified. They were out of ideas. Nick racked his brain, but it felt utterly depleted. Only a little bit of a life essence, just a little, would fix him up. But he couldn't do that now. He had to wait. The waiting tortured him. It was torturing them all.

"Little peculiars," the hollow crooned. "I know you're there. I can taste your scent. I can hear your little hearts beating. The waves will catch you even if I don't, you know that. Too bad none of you checked the tides…" His voice trailed off. He didn't need to finish the sentence. The four of them knew it had been a bad idea to run to the beach, but it was either that or face him, and even among them all they didn't have much power left.

Sweat trickled down the side of his face but he didn't wipe it away. The hollow knew they were hiding down there, yes, but if they didn't make a sound the hollow might not be galvanized into finishing his little game and actually attacking them again. Nick knew that would be the end. He also knew the hollow wasn't quite ready to end the game yet.

"I'm tired of waiting," the hollow whispered. Even with the surf they could hear his whisper. It seemed to echo in their hiding place and amplify in their ears. "I'm bored with you. I'll just let the tide take you. Goodbye, peculiars. See you never." They heard him saunter off, his boots scuffing at the sand and rock. A hollow the same age as Enoch. Or at least the age Enoch was in his own time. That was something none of them had seen before, especially not Nick.

A million questions spun merry-go-round-like through his head, the same ones over and over. How had he gotten here? What was he going to do? How could they beat the hollow? Why wasn't this place like the book? Would he get home? Where was home anyway? And what was he doing in this place? The constant cycle doubled his weariness and made his head ache.

"He's gone," breathed Olive. The fire in her eyes subsided just a little and she looked around at them all. "Finally."

Enoch let out a low growl of frustration. "We're not safe, though! Didn't you hear what he said?" He glanced past her at the sea. Already the water had reached past the faint boundary of seaweed and pebbles that had marked its previous extent. Not much time for them to leave the cave in the rock and trudge through the shallows to higher ground. It had been a very _very_ bad idea to hide here. But potential danger was better than danger standing before them with white eyes, ready to unleash his monster on them.

"We've got to leave," Nick said. If only he had a source of power. "I'll go ahead. I led us here, I should lead us out." He rose from his crouching position, wincing at the sudden cramp in his leg, ready to venture out.

But Enoch was glaring at him. Glaring as if he wanted to remove Nick's heart and make a living dummy with it. "Oh? You should lead? The one who got us into this mess in the first place? I think not." He rose too, tight-fisted, his eyes locked on Nick's. "We wouldn't be here if it weren't for you!"

He had a point. It was Nick who had put them in the path of the hollow, Nick with his ignorance of the world and his aura of death. Those who carried death with them would sense that aura. They would be attracted to Nick's ability to kill. Horace had said so as soon as they met. But Nick hadn't let the hollow touch any of them. He had saved their lives. And Enoch didn't see that at all.

"Please," said Fiona, begging with her eyes too, "don't argue. You can argue all you want once we leave. But for now-"

Enoch ignored her. He couldn't stop now. Nick could see that. He could also see the tide rising. The fear in his stomach rose with it. He couldn't swim. They had to get out of there, and fast. But Enoch-

"We wouldn't be here if it weren't for your...your twistedness!" He was breathing hard now, gritting his teeth so the muscle stood out in his jaw. "You led the hollow to us! You put Olive in danger!"

"My twistedness…" Nick tasted the word, rolling it on his tongue with amusement but mostly indignation. Enoch thought he was twisted, did he? Enoch of the preserved hearts and Frankenstein-like mannequins? Enoch had no idea what twistedness was. Enoch hadn't been dismembered, put back together with metal, imprisoned, starved, and almost murdered at his father's command. Enoch didn't have a monster inside, screaming at him to take lives in order to live. He didn't know what that was like at all.

The first onset of water trickled into their hiding spot. Olive jumped and looked out to sea. Her hands started to glow with heat. Not much time. They had to get out of there. Already Nick could feel water in his worn-out sneakers, taunting him. But only part of him felt that. Twistedness. Monster. Murdered. Power. Panic jumbled his thoughts and separated them into untethered words. Murder. Power. _Now_.

"Let's go," Enoch grunted, turning his back on Nick and facing the sea. A second wave flowed around his feet. He started to splash his way out, one hand groping for Olive's back to guide her.

A moment later he gasped and fell to his knees in the wet sand. He gasped again, more of a choke than a breath.

"No!" Olive shouted. "Stop it! You'll kill him!" She tried to step between him and Nick. The invisible vacuum hit her too and she fell back against Enoch. Already his face was turning grey, his breathing ragged.

This was right. This was what he deserved. He deserved to have his life sucked away. Nick angled his cupped hands, pulling harder on his essence. The monster in his screamed in delight. Yes. More life. More power. And such power it was, fierce and wild and perfect for him. Olive had stumbled out of the way now, trying to get her breath back. Enoch writhed and fell backward, his face twisted in pain.

"Stop!" Fiona yelled. Nick didn't listen. "Stop!" she yelled again, and made a flinging motion. Nick laughed, and something in him turned away and hid from itself. He felt vines constrict around his legs, entangling him and inching toward his arms. Then his arms were jerked down and pinioned in place with runners as thick as his fingers.

"No more," Olive whispered as Fiona stepped back, breathing heavily. Enoch coughed weakly and struggled to sit up.

Nick couldn't look at them. He couldn't speak. He couldn't even look at Fiona as she caused his fetters to drop away.

Then he bolted from them and ran.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The carpet smelled of dust. Nick buried the resultant sneeze in his borrowed sheet and sat up on the air mattress, gazing around into the dark. A shaft of moonlight cut through the gloom and illuminated the end of Levi's bed, a small mountain range darker than the rest of the room. As his eyes adjusted, more details emerged: scattered socks, books, a used towel…evidence of a room that was lived in. Nick was a stranger in that room. He winced as he remembered his pleading voice earlier, explaining how he didn't want to stay in a room by himself, how he was too shaken up to be alone. And here he was sleeping on the floor in someone else's bedroom, alone anyway because he was the only one awake.

Now was the perfect time to do what he had come there to do. Everyone was asleep. They wouldn't know until the thing was already done, until he'd accomplished his task. He could almost feel the presence of the Elixir where it lay hidden in the closet floor. Levi had shown the hiding place to him only a few hours before, but it felt like years. Time had blurred together and Nick couldn't put it back in order. His mission was the only thing still distinct and clear in his mind. And now was the perfect time to finish it. A thrill, both terror and triumph, shot through his nerves and made him shiver in the dark.

Then a cloud obscured the moon, and his terror won and took him with it. He had to escape. He couldn't face the possibility of his death right now, not in the dark, not when his father's masked face was so vivid in his mind. He, Nick, had always feared death, but that fear had come to a head now. He had to escape it. The question was, where could he go?

The moonlight returned, and in its fresh light he could read part of the spine of one of the scattered books. Peregrine. Intrigued Nick shifted to his knees and crawled forward, reaching. His hand closed on it and he drew it to him, settling back on the mattress with the book in his lap. _Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children_. Children who had unusual abilities, he learned from the back. A place where such children lived together, separated from the world and from time.

Something tickled his leg and he jumped, brushing at it with sudden desperation. A small black speck fell to the carpet. A spider. He gazed at it briefly, then stretched out his hand. There was a brief flash, like static branching from a wool blanket in the dark. The spider lay still and he crushed the dead body between two fingers. Peculiar children, like him? Peculiar, as in they could suck away the life from any living thing?

Nick wiped his finger off on his t-shirt and burrowed under the sheets. In his blanket cocoon, he breathed slowly and deeply, feeling the close weight on top of him. It was like being in a womb. No, in a shroud, tucked away into blissful unconsciousness. He clasped the book to him and willed power into his hands. If this worked, he would be able to escape. If it didn't, he had nothing to lose. But he would still be trapped. He forced more power into his fingers. The dark of his cocoon faded to grey as he absorbed the book's essence. He started to lose consciousness. That wasn't supposed to happen. But it was too late. The book was taking him over. He let it do so with what little consciousness he had left. Then darkness took over and his body turned limp.

The next thing he knew, his mouth was crusted in sand. It crunched in his teeth and made him gag. Spitting out as much as he could, he rolled over and sat up. A beach. He was lying on a beach. Fog enveloped him, clingy wet fog that made it hard to see much. Staggering to his feet and partly dazed with the magnitude of what he'd just done, he began to trip up the beach. Trip was the right word, because at every other step the sand would sink and he would have to regain his balance fast or go down. Not that it would matter if he did, since his clothes already clung to him with the dampness of the fog and his brief (or was it brief?) stretch in the sand. Through the fog a line of asphalt-black trees emerged, first just their dark shapes, then branches and trunks and undergrowth. That's where he had to be: in there, in those trees. He didn't know why. He didn't have to tell his feet to go; they were going of their own accord.

The air turned colder in the shadowy greyness. Still in his sweatpants and t-shirt, Nick shivered. If he had a source of body heat, he could suck it up and get warm. But no luck. There seemed to be nothing alive in this strange new world, not seagulls, not crabs, not anything. Only the trees and jutting rocks greeted him. As he glanced around in growing desperation, his eyes snagged on something. An opening in the rock. He was stepping in before he could object or even think about it. The darkness swallowed him. No, not entirely darkness: a crack of light filtered through to him and lit the way forward.

Without warning he walked right through a shockwave. At least it felt like one. Or maybe it felt like walking through a mirror. Whatever it was, it squeezed the breath from him and he stumbled forward, light-headed. This time, it wasn't gloomy rocks that met his gaze, but a green lawn, framed among the leaves.

Then the world started to spin. Nausea washed over him. He collapsed sideways, squeezing his eyes shut and trying not to black out. His body felt empty, painfully and terribly empty of strength. Darkness crept around the edges of his mind. He pushed it away. Life. He needed a life. Without one he wouldn't be able to stay awake and figure out where the heck he was.

Something rustled close by. He saw a rabbit through slitted eyes. That would be enough. Pushing himself up on arms that barely worked, he stretched out a hand toward the animal. There was an abrupt static noise and a barely audible thump. The darkness in Nick's head receded. His eyes cleared. His hands stopped shaking, and he breathed in the life he had just absorbed. He glanced over as he stood up. The dead rabbit lay a few feet away, half-hidden in fallen pine needles. Its tiny feet were curled above its furry breast.

"I see you in there!" a voice blurted. "What was that? What did you do?"

He froze. He didn't know anyone was watching him. Why hadn't he sensed it?

"Come out!" the voice demanded, "or I'll make you!"

Nick braced himself for an attack and stepped out. A boy stood glaring at him, his arms crossed over his suspenders.

"You don't belong here," he said. "No one does, except us." He stepped forward, but stopped as Nick raised his poised hands. "I saw you kill that bird," he added, "so I know you're a freak too."

Nick paused, still ready to strike. A freak too? What did that mean? Could the stranger possibly be like him? No. Nobody was like him.

"It was just a rabbit," Nick said quietly. "And I couldn't help it."

"Just a rabbit? I could've used it. I just needed one more heart for today."

Nick dropped his hands. The enormity of what he had just accomplished swept over him in a tidal wave of realization.

"I know you," he whispered. "You're Enoch. You're one of the peculiar children."


End file.
